Palestinians: University Students Vote For Terror

Palestinian political analysts said that the Hamas victory at the university is an indication of what would happen if general elections were held these days in the West Bank.

Both Hamas and the PFLP are strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel. They continue to call for terror attacks against Israelis. The results of the election mean that most of the students at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, not Gaza, support groups that have chosen terrorism over peace.

The Hamas victory at Bir Zeit University also shows that it does not matter how much money you pour on Fatah's campus supporters; a majority of students would still prefer to vote for terror groups that do not believe in Israel's right to exist.

Hamas leaders also called for holding long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories. They said they had no doubt that their movement would easily defeat Fatah.

Students at Bir Zeit in the West Bank celebrating Hamas victory. (Image source: Al Jazeera)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction suffered yet another humiliating defeat at the Bir Zeit University student council elections, held on April 27. Last year, for the first time since 2007, the Hamas-affiliated student list on campus also won the vote.

The results of this year's election at one of the Palestinians' most important universities reflects the growing discontent with Abbas's Fatah faction among Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinian political analysts said that the Hamas victory is an indication of what would happen if general elections were held these days in the West Bank.

The Wafaa list, which belongs to Hamas, won 25 of the student council seats, while Fatah's Martyrs Yasser Arafat list got 21 seats. A list belonging to the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) won five seats.

Both Hamas and the PFLP are strongly opposed to any peace process with Israel. They continue to call for terror attacks against Israelis. The results of the election mean that most of the students at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, not Gaza, support groups that have chosen terrorism over peace.

Bir Zeit University, which has 12,000 students, is located only a few miles from Ramallah, which houses the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leadership. As such, the Hamas victory carries symbolic significance because it shows that even in Abbas's own backyard, he Islamist movement remains as strong and popular as ever.

What Is also significant is that the Hamas victory came despite a massive crackdown by Abbas's security forces on Hamas supporters in the West Bank. The crackdown included university students affiliated with the Islamist movement. Not surprisingly, this crackdown seems to have backfired, driving more university students into the waiting open arms of Abbas's political enemies.

The Hamas victory at Bir Zeit University also shows that it does not matter how much money you pour on Fatah supporters on campus; a majority of students would still prefer to vote for terror groups that do not believe in Israel's right to exist.

The results of the election should be seen more as a vote of no-confidence in Fatah and Abbas's policies than a Hamas win.

Palestinian analysts said that the results reflected Palestinians' distrust of Fatah, a faction that has long been suffering from internecine fighting and splits. The main charge against Fatah is that it has failed to reform and pave the way for the emergence of new and younger leaders.

Sufyan Abu Zayda, a senior Fatah official from the Gaza Strip, commented on the results of the Bir Zeit University election by saying, "Fatah needs an internal shake-up before it faces more defeats." He noted that those who were defeated were not the Fatah-affiliated students, but their leaders.

In recent years, the Fatah leadership in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been torn apart by internal strife. In the Gaza Strip, rival Fatah activists have been beating and shooting at each other. In the West Bank, Abbas has been busy getting rid of his critics in Fatah. The latest victim of Abbas's measures is Gen. Akram Rajoub, the Palestinian Authority Governor of the largest West Bank city, Nablus. Last week, Abbas surprisingly fired Rajoub, who is also a senior Fatah official.

Rajoub's dismissal came days after he walked out of a Passover ceremony organized by the tiny Christian Samaritan community near Nablus. Rajoub and scores of Palestinian dignitaries walked out of the event after discovering that some leaders of the Jewish community in the West Bank had also been invited. Some Palestinians said that Abbas decided to fire the governor because his action seriously embarrassed the Palestinian Authority leadership in the eyes of the international community and threatened to damage relations between the Samaritan community and the Palestinians.

Other Palestinians, however, surmised that Abbas's decision was related to criticism the governor had made against top Fatah officials.

Whatever the reason, many Palestinians agreed that the dismissal of the powerful and popular governor was a sign of increased tensions among the top brass of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leaderships.

It is precisely because of this internal bickering that many Palestinians have lost confidence in Abbas and Fatah.

The results of the Bir Zeit University elections are also an indication of the Palestinian students' rejection of Abbas's general policies, especially regarding Israel. This is a vote of no-confidence in the Oslo Accords with Israel, the "peace process" and ongoing security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

The 3,481 students who voted in favor of the Hamas-affiliated list want to see the destruction of Israel. Similarly, the he 668 students who voted for the PFLP-affiliated list support terrorism and would also like to see the destruction of Israel. These numbers reflect the general sentiments that have long been prevalent among many Palestinians, including students and professors on various campuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"How can Fatah win any election when it is divided and its leaders are openly saying that they listen to Zionist songs?" remarked Palestinian political analyst Hisham Sakallah. He pointed out that while Hamas supporters on campus ran in the election on a ticket that promoted "armed resistance" against Israel, Fatah leaders were continuing to conduct security coordination with the Israelis.

Hamas correctly sees its victory in the Bir Zeit University election as a sign of growing Palestinian support for its "armed resistance" and the "Al-Quds Intifada" against Israel.

Hamas leaders were quick to celebrate the victory of their list. They stressed that the vote was a severe blow to Abbas, Fatah and all those who believe in any "peace process" with Israel. Buoyed by the victory, the Hamas leaders also called for holding long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories. They said they had no doubt that their movement would easily defeat Fatah. "The results of the election (at Bir Zeit University) are a victory for the path of resistance," declared Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

The Hamas victory provides further evidence of the increased radicalization in Palestinian society. This is the direct result of the ongoing campaign of anti-Israel incitement that continues to be waged not only by Hamas, but the Palestinian Authority and Fatah too, and that is funded in large part by Europe.

Under such circumstances, it is not a good idea to promote the idea of free and democratic elections in the Palestinian territories. Worse, the talk about a renewed peace process and a two-state solution has become a distasteful joke.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based in Jerusalem.

Comment on this item

10 Reader Comments

Richard E Sherwin • May 1, 2016 at 07:16

Perhaps the Palestinian university students are voting against the PLO/Fatah/Abbas 11 yrs of illegal terrorism occupying Palestinian society or its corruption. Against this reign of terror, as usual the Palestinian university students behave just as stupid and self centered as most university students across the world's intellectual centers ; it's their form of voting to BDS the PLO and hand over what's left of their freedom to Hamas who will gobble them up and spit them out and encourage them to keep blaming the Israelis refusal to occupy them for all the troubles their own. What would the moslems xns UN and Euro NGOs do without the existence of Jews to blame, hate, and use as excuse for the failures of their own societies cultures and fundamentalisms? Just what these university students ARE doing....

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Macdonald • Apr 29, 2016 at 17:36

The question one should ask yourself is would you hire any of them? With any expectation of getting a return on your hiring investment...? University of what?

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John • Apr 29, 2016 at 17:02

It is well overdue for Israel to abrogate the Oslo accords the terms of which were never implemented or adhered to by the
PLO or PNC and to toughen their responses to border crossing violations, unpaid electricity bills etc. etc.

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Alexander Hersh • Apr 29, 2016 at 12:03

Hamas is playing a very dangerous game of brinkmanship!

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jeb • Apr 29, 2016 at 09:02

The Palestinian propaganda machine with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic radical Revolutionary agents with political influence in Europe and the USA have attempted to advance the comparison, Palestinian terrorists like the Irgun and other Jewish "terrorist" organizations are freedom fighters. In their narrative, Palestinians, Hamas, are fighting oppression and are advocating freedom. And that is the most insidious aspect of the false comparison.

Whereas the Jewish Homeland, developed as the nation of Israel, the Palestinians have failed to advance nation building ahead of their long term goal to eradicate Israel and kill or expel the Jewish nationals.

Abbas has already stated their will be no place in Palestine for Jews. Hamas claims their will be only a Palestinian state a one state solution.an Islamist solution. Hamas wields Islam as a weapon.

The claim by Islamists is that they are restoring the former status quo by eliminating settlers is belied by their on going genocidal campaign against Christian communities that predate Islam, the suggestion Jews have no connection to the Temple mount as if Islam predates Judaism because it should not exist.

These hate themes that resonate with Liberals in the west, who bear angst toward "western" religion, shared socialist ideology which they believe is a matter of historical determinism. Perhaps gullible enough to believe that Islam is the synthetic outcome of Judaism and Christianity, which oddly enough many American "moderate" Muslims claim. Islam is Christianity and Judaism in this false narrative. The fact is Islam has little or no direct relationship to the theology of either Christianity or Judaism. It is Moses without Torah and Christianity in which Jesus is as dead as the atheist version.

Hence the shift towards a more popular interpretation of Islamic tyranny and the Obama prayer of confession he often recites in a long list of apologetic for America and the Constitution which they do not seek to reform but to destroy just like their kindred spirits in radical Islam.Hence the Palestinian "cause" is not merely an attack on the eradication of Israel and the Jews but any faith or belief that opposes the socialist's dementia that suits Jihadi aims.

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Frank Adam • Apr 29, 2016 at 08:04

In some ways the Palestine Arab dead end demand for a state(let) has always been an attempt by the Husseini family to garner personal power kudos and put their fingers in the till.

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shoshana netser • Apr 29, 2016 at 02:59

Since the Balfour declaration in 1917 to allow the creation of a "Jewish national home" in Palestine, practically all the Arab nations had voted against it. In the thirties the famous Mufti of Jerusalem went all the way to Berlin to meet Hitler in order to talk about ways to erase the Jewish presence in Palestine. So, there is nothing new in their denying the very existence of the state of Israel. I am one who think that our domination on most of the western bank is both illegal and making us, the state of Israel not really democrat. And most important, not really a Jewish state. We came to Israel to create a JEWISH STATE not a binational state. Israel can be and is a democratic state who gives full equality to its non Jewish population: Muslims, Druze, Christians and others. The prolonged domination on these territories work in the long run against us. And NO I do not think and I do not say that we should withdraw from all the territories that we conquered in 1967, not to forget that we were attacked by 6 Arab nations. But certainly from these regions with a strongly concentrated Arab population. I know that I am far from being "a small minority" in Israel.

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stevenl • Apr 29, 2016 at 00:11

Palestinian students only repeat what they see in the Western Universities.Saudi Arabia did a terrific investment in American and European Universities.The USSR could not sell to the West the rope to ....; but the fanatical Islamists may succeed!

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CRB • Apr 28, 2016 at 21:50

So, where is the tipping point here? Day after day, week after week, month after month, it is the same. It is the generosity of the very infidels - Christian and Jewish alike - that allows this drivel and spewing of hatred. At some point, someone will "pave [that] paradise and put up a parking lot"...they will not be otherwise swayed.

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Jonathan Hughes • Apr 28, 2016 at 19:46

That is all Muslims think of. Jesus says: Don't be a terrorist. Satan says the opposite to that. How can Muslims obey God?

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